Fabio di Giannantonio ‘never thought about quitting’

After failing to score in the opening six rounds, di Giannantonio hit his stride with 23 points during an impressive mid-season run that included pole position (in damp conditions) at Mugello and an eighth place in Germany.

But his form frustratingly dropped away just as suddenly as it arrived and, by the penultimate round at Sepang, the young Italian had repeated his early six non-scores in a row.

It was while waiting at the airport to fly home that the 24-year-old raised eyebrows with an Instagram post that spoke of having ‘less and less fun on the bike’ and ‘in the end the question is... do you have an OBSESSION? Because only by answering yes can you pit yourself against the greatest in the sport.’ He also mentioned 'another chapter opens' after Valencia and 'who knows knows…'

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“Well, I never said that I was thinking to quit racing or something on social,” di Giannantonio clarified at Saturday’s 2023 Gresini team launch. “But it had been an up and down season for sure.

“We had some problems. First of all, when you're a rookie, you need to do a lot of [trial and error] to understand and then build from there. So we did our mistakes, me and the team, and it was also normal because all my side of the team were all rookies so we were struggling a little bit for sure.

“Still I think the potential is quite high and we were able to do some highs during the year. But with the arrival of Frankie Carchedi, I think that we have the right experience to step up the level and do something more this year.”

After the social media post, di Giannantonio finished the season with his first point since Austria in August with 15th place at the Valencia finale, but was left 20th in the standings.

A few days later, he got to work with new crew chief Carchedi (title winner with Joan Mir at Suzuki) and the GP22 he will campaign alongside new team-mate Alex Marquez this season.

“[Frankie Carchedi] is very experienced in MotoGP, so I think it will help us to remove some mistakes that we did last year,” di Giannantonio said.

“The goal for this season is to improve every race on the result of last year, to be consistently in the top 15 and then from that try to achieve goal-by-goal. So first be back in the points and then top ten, top five and maybe if we do a good job fighting for something more.

“At the moment we are taking our time. We are just with our feet on the ground. We know that we have a lot of work to do, but the feeling is great and the energy is super high.”

di Giannantonio and Carchedi got off to a strong start together with the sixth fastest lap time at the Valencia test.

2023 pre-season testing will begin at Sepang in Malaysia from February 10-12.